Since March 2020, many countries throughout the world have been in lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Italy, the quarantine began on March 9, 2020, and containment measures were partially reduced only on May 4, 2020. The quarantine experience has a significant psychological impact at all ages but can have it above all on adolescents who cannot go to school, play sports, and meet friends. In this scenario, this study aimed to provide a general overview of the perceived (...) risk related to COVID-19 and the psychological experience of quarantine in a large sample of Italian adolescents. 978 adolescents (males = 339; females = 639) living in 13 Italian regions and attending upper secondary school (age range: 13–20, M = 16.57, SD = 1.20), responded to an internet-based questionnaire about perceived health risk related to COVID-19, knowledge and information on measures to control the pandemic, beliefs and opinions on stage two of the quarantine, and psychological experiences related to quarantine. 31.1% of the participants lived in "red zones," which are places where the government has imposed stricter measures of containment due to exponential and uncontrolled growth in contagion cases compared to other areas in Italy. According to our results, Italian adolescents had a low perception of risk of COVID-19. Perceived comparative susceptibility and perceived seriousness were also very low. However, they were aware of the restriction measures necessary to contain the spread of the virus, and they agreed with the limitations imposed by the government. Females and adolescents living in a “red zone” showed more significant psychological negative feelings about the quarantine experience. However, no significant differences were found about the regions where the teenagers of our sample live and the other variables related to the COVID-19 experience. This is very interesting data, leading us to hypothesize that the participants' negative feelings may be more related to the adolescent period than to the pandemic itself. (shrink)

In recent years, a ''change in attitude'' in particle physics has led to our understanding current quantum field theories as effective field theories (EFTs). The present paper is concerned with the significance of this EFT approach, especially from the viewpoint of the debate on reductionism in science. In particular, I shall show how EFTs provide a new and interesting case study in current philosophical discussion on reduction, emergence, and inter-level relationships in general.

Is there more that one "Curie's principle"? How far are different formulations legitimate? What are the aspects that make it so scientifically fruitful, independently of how it is formulated? The paper is devoted to exploring these questions. We start with illustrating Curie's original 1894 article and his focus. Then, we consider the way that the discussion of the principle took shape from early commentators to its modern form. We say why we think that the modern focus on the inter-state version (...) of the principle loses sight of some of the most interesting significant applications of the principle. Finally, we address criticism of the principle put forward by Norton and purported counterexamples due to Roberts. (shrink)

After having reconstructed a minimal biological characterisation of species, we endorse an “empirical approach” based on the idea that it is the peculiar evolutionary history of the species at issue—its peculiar origination process, its peculiar metapopulation structure and the peculiar mixture and strength of homeostatic processes vis à vis heterostatic ones—that determines species’ identity at a time and through time. We then explore the consequences of the acceptance of the empirical approach in settling the individuals versus kinds dispute. In particular, (...) while conceptual arguments have been proposed to show that species can be equally treated as individuals and kinds because mereology’s and set-theory’s languages are inter-translatable, we advance instead a causal argument to sustain the claim that each species is both a kind and an individual. (shrink)

Language used to describe measles in the press has altered significantly over the last sixty years, a shift that reflects changing perceptions of the disease within the medical community as well as broader changes in public health discourse. California, one of the most populous U.S. states and seat of the 2015 measles outbreak originating at Disneyland, presents an opportunity for observing these changes. This article offers a longitudinal case study of five decades of measles news coverage by the Los Angeles (...) Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, which represented two of the largest news markets in California when the measles vaccine was released, in 1963, and during the 2015 outbreak. Measles reporting during this period displays patterns pointing to an active role for journalists in shaping public understanding of health and medical matters, especially as they recede from public memory, through the employment of available and circulating political and cultural frames. Moreover, journalistic frames in this period of reporting incorporated presentist descriptions of the disease, which imposed present values on the medical past, and which were constructed of decontextualized historical references that supported prevailing contemporary notions of the disease. Framing and the tendency toward presentism, in the context of shifting public health discourse, had the effect of communicating an increasingly severe sounding disease over time, and of shifting blame for that disease’s spread from nature to government to individuals. Journalistic framing and causal stories have much power to shape public understanding of medical matters as they recede from public memory. (shrink)

¿Qué significa "fracasar" para un naturalista metodológico? ¿Está éste abocado al escepticismo, y es este un fracaso? Para responder a estas preguntas, realizaré (1) un análisis de lo que se considera "naturalismo" en Hume, desde el que analizaré (2) la crisis escéptica narrada en la conclusión del Libro I del Tratado. Allí defenderé que la metafórica utilizada, engarzada con el concepto de fracaso, permite dos lecturas: una que une necesariamente naturalismo metodológico y escepticismo mitigado, y otra que no. No obstante, (...) concluiré que en ambos casos se dibuja una misma experiencia de límite que permite construir ciencia y filosofía no-excepcionalistas. (shrink)

In the decade following hepatitis B vaccine’s 1981 approval, U.S. health officials issued evolving guidelines on who should receive the vaccine: first, gay men, injection drug users, and healthcare workers; later, hepatitis B-positive women’s children; and later still, all newborns. States laws that mandated the vaccine for all children were quietly accepted in the 1990s; in the 2000s, however, popular anti-vaccine sentiment targeted the shot as an emblem of immunization policy excesses. Shifting attitudes toward the vaccine in this period were (...) informed by hepatitis B’s changing popular image, legible in textual and visual representations of the infection from the 1980s through the 1990s. Notably, the outbreak of AIDS, the advent of genetically engineered pharmaceuticals, and a Democratic push for health reform shaped and reshaped hepatitis B’s public image. Hepatitis B thus became, in turn, an AIDS-like scourge; proof of a new era of pharmaceuticals; a threat from which all American children had a right to be protected; and a cancer-causing infection spread by teenage lifestyles. The metamorphosis of the infection’s image was reflected in evolving policy recommendations regarding who should receive the vaccine in the 1980s, and was key to securing broad uptake of the vaccine in the 1990s. (shrink)

In questo contributo di introduzione al volume “Biodiversity” (Rivista di Estetica n. 59, 2015), dopo aver sottolineato il legame tra la realizzazione degli inventari biologici (le tassonomie) e lo studio della biodiversità, e la difficoltà di definire la biodiversità, prendo in esame tre diversi modi di intendere il valore della biodiversità. Oltre al valore etico ed estetico, oggetto rispettivamente di discipline relativamente recenti come l’etica ambientale e l’estetica ambientale, la biodiversità ha un valore economico, presente soprattutto nel cosiddetto approccio dei (...) servizi ecosistemici, dove la biodiversità è principalmente intesa nei termini dei servizi che gli ecosistemi possono offrire agli esseri umani presenti e futuri. (shrink)

The relationship between smell and politics could appear obscure; and yet, when it comes to smell, questions about freedom and constriction, social and ontological mingling or distinctions, clearly arise. In this paper, I will especially focus on the domain of food as a clear example for describing some of the political ambivalences characterizing the sense of smell. The aim is to pave the way for a more detailed ‘sociopolitical aesthetics of smell’ to come. I will stress epistemological and social features (...) of odors in order to highlight their ambivalence in knowledge and community life. Perceivers and odors will emerge as mingled bodies, highlighting an ongoing process of material as well as emotional affection. Moreover, I will present some relevant examples of smell as social status symbols in relation to the aesthetic values linked to class hierarchy. Consumerism and scented goods will be lastly discussed in order to shade light on contemporary perceptual phenomena and their role in the socioeconomic dimension. (shrink)

The article presents the definition of polylingual education, aсcepted in the scientific and expert community abroad. The positive practices of multilingual education in Europe are summarized on the basis of the analysis of the project of European centre for modern languages of the Council of Europe, allowing to assess adequately the significance of the transformation of the language policy of the Russian Federation, using the experience of European countries in the development of polylingual personality. Arguments are given regarding the prospects (...) for the development of multilingual education in Russia, and one of the possible models for its implementation in higher education is proposed. (shrink)

Plagiarism among university students is an important issue that affects their preparation and undermines the universities’ efforts to prepare skilled graduates. Universities try to fight this problem back with strict ethics policies, but they require the proper plagiarism detection tools, at affordable costs, to implement these policies. In this paper, we present PlagZap, a cost-efficient, high-volume and high-speed plagiarism detection system built using open-source software and designed to be used on textual student assignments. We discuss the advantages of this design, (...) plagiarism obfuscation methods and empirical results from using PlagZap. (shrink)

Visuo-motor adaptation to optical prisms displacing the visual scene (prism adaptation, PA) is a method used for investigating visuomotor plasticity in healthy individuals and, in clinical settings, for the rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect. In the standard paradigm, the adaptation phase involves repeated pointings to visual targets, while wearing optical prisms displacing the visual scene laterally. Here we explored differences in PA, and its aftereffects (AEs), as related to the sensory modality of the target. Visual, auditory, and multisensory - audio-visual (...) - targets in the adaptation phase were used, while participants wore prisms displacing the visual field rightwards by 10◦. Proprioceptive, visual, visual-proprioceptive, auditory-proprioceptive straight-ahead shifts were measured. Pointing to auditory and to audio-visual targets in the adaptation phase produces proprioceptive, visual-proprioceptive, and auditory-proprioceptive AEs, as the typical visual targets did. This finding reveals that cross-modal plasticity effects involve both the auditory and the visual modality, and their interactions (Experiment 1). Even a shortened PA phase, requiring only 24 pointings to visual and audio-visual targets (Experiment 2), is sufficient to bring about AEs, as compared to the standard 92-pointings procedure. Finally, pointings to auditory targets cause AEs, although PA with a reduced number of pointings (24) to auditory targets brings about smaller AEs, as compared to the 92-pointings procedure (Experiment 3). Together, results from the three experiments extend to the auditory modality the sensorimotor plasticity underlying the typical AEs produced by PA to visual targets. Importantly, PA to auditory targets appears characterized by less accurate pointings and error correction, suggesting that the auditory component of the PA process may be less central to the building up of the AEs, than the sensorimotor pointing activity per se. These findings highlight both the effectiveness of a reduced number of pointings for bringing about AEs, and the possibility of inducing PA with auditory targets, which may be used as a compensatory route in patients with visual deficits. (shrink)

RESUMENInvorme bibliográfico sobre Baltasar gracián que incluye las referencias de los años 1996-1998. Revisa y actualiza repertorios y bibliografías anteriores publicadas por la misma autora.GRACIÁN-FILOSOFÍA ESPAÑOLA-BARROCOABSTRACTBibliographical report on Baltasar Gracian that includes the references from 1996 to 1998. it revises and updates previous bibliographies published by the same author.KEYWORDSGRACIAN-SPANISH PHILOSOPHY.BARROQUE.

In this paper two poetological passages from Prudentius’ Cathemerinon liber are analysed from the perspective of the idea of “presence in the distance”; in other words, Prudentius’ lyrical forebears, who belong to both the Biblical and the classical tradition, harmonise in those poetical claims of the Christian hymnodist; Prudentius speaks with their voice and even proclaims to fulfil them. In Cath. 5 he recalls the Song of Moses from Exodus 15 by almost paraphrasing it and, at the same time, he (...) reuses fragments from Horace’s ode 4,5, while alluding to its main themes. In the opening stanzas of Cath. 9, Prudentius reveals his models by referring first to Horace’s Odes, then by openly mentioning David the psalmist, and he portrays himself as the heir and at the same time as the fulfilment of both literary forerunners. Further examples from Cath. 6 and from the Contra Symmachum illustrate how Prudentius does not present the act of reusing ancient fragments as contradictory, although they originally conveyed a pagan message. Thanks to the Christian poet, the past finds a new vitality. (shrink)

This essay discusses Claudio Magris’s concept of Mitteleuropa—which is central to his view of Europe—by situating it within the context of Triestine cultural history. It first presents the reflections on Europe formulated by the early generations of journalists in La Favilla, the newspaper founded in Trieste in 1836. This is followed by a discussion of the cultural and political writings of Scipio Slataper (1888–1915) and Giani Stuparich (1891–1961). Like Magris these journalists and writers assumed the role of public intellectuals and (...) reflected on three pivotal periods in the history of Trieste by focusing on the question of cosmopolitanism (La Favilla), political and national identity (Slataper), and the feasibility of a European project after World War II (Stuparich). Against the prevailing totalizing nationalist vision, these writers explored the possibility of a non-national political identity based on a cultural notion of Europeanism. The different views of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Triestine journalists and writers of the idea of Europe, of Trieste as a border city, and of European identity, are illuminated by Magris’s own theoretical elaborations on borders, on Europe, and on Mitteleuropa, which further highlight their historical and conceptual intricacies. (shrink)

In 1754 Véron Duverger de Forbonnais published the two books of his Élemens du Commerce which, as the Avertissement stated, collected together some of the chapters the author had written for the Encyclopédie. The second edition was published in the same year with ‘quelques légères additions’. In 1765, Carlos Lemaur, a French engineer who worked in Spain from 1750 until 1785, translated the text into Spanish. The probable reason for the translation was the importance that Forbonnais attributed to the construction (...) of roads and infrastructure that enabled improved communication between the markets and an increased distribution of money to the small cities located far from big centres. The translator worked as an engineer in a number of remarkable constructions designed to enhance logistics in Spain, and shared Forbonnais’ perspective on Enlightenment principles. My analysis will focus on the translation strategies adopted by Lemaur, and on the adaptation of the source text to the target culture, following the approach taken by Theo Hermans. I will examine the equivalence between the source text and the translation, which was the result of the functionality and dynamism of the translator's technique. (shrink)

The 17th and 18th centuries were the theatre of the fight between two main theories concerning the development of organisms: preformationism (or preformism) and epigeneticism (or epigenesis). According to the first, the formation of new features during organisms’ development can be seen as the result of a mere unfolding of features that were preformed in the sperm, the egg, or the zygote. According to epigeneticism, there is no pre-existing form, and development is a process where genuinely new characters emerge from (...) formless matter. The debate involved naturalists, anatomists, physiologists, microscopists, medical doctors, and philosophers as well. Current developmental biology is, according to some, still inspired (or haunted) by the age-old controversy. The aim of this contribution is twofold. First, to discuss in which guise, if any, the old controversy is still shaping the contemporary debate in biology and philosophy of biology; and, second, to sketch Schelling’s position on that debate, suggesting that it may contain some still valuable philosophical insight. (shrink)

The author considers the Digital Humanities as a tendency towards a constructive synthesis of computer technology and humanitarian science in the context of their claim to make a paradigm shift in the humanities. As part of this review, the author raises a question about the role of interactive multimedia tools in the humanities, and tried to evaluate the novelty and content that scientific and educational projects receive with their help. The author develops and justifies the principle of systematization of Digital (...) Humanities projects, based on the priority of distinguishing projects by the nature of the relationship between their humanitarian and computer (technological) components. Considering both the actual digital projects and the academic publications devoted to them in the context of their systematization, the author observes that many projects are largely experimental in nature due to the use of ever new multimedia tools, so it is premature to talk about a meaningful transformation of humanitarian science. Focusing on the issue of a successful synthesis of digital technologies and the humanities, the author notes that new technological tools (multimedia, AI or neural networks, etc) allow raising new questions, updating additional objects of research and creating new methods. However, new tools do not always set the completeness of the new content, only supplementing it, and the acquired interactivity does not always directly work for scientific character. In this case, we face with the reverse situation, when the claims of technologically determined disciplines to be scientific are intertwined with the claims of disciplinary science to manufacturability. As a result, the author concludes that the direction of Digital Humanities is significantly influenced by technoscience with its dissolution of the boundaries between fundamental and applied research and the desire for new technologies that transform the processes under study, which makes McLuhan’s concept especially relevant. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEngineers managed to attract the attention of thinkers to their profession and become the protagonists of philosophical discourse. This article explores whether the philosophy of engineerin...

Religion has an essential effect on the development of any society since it impacts religious norms and models of behaviour, establishes priorities and values, influences gender relations, predetermines gender roles, and influences the establishing of certain traditions, laws, and customs. This article is a review of the historic position of the Russian Orthodox Church – the dominant religion in Russia – its past and current status in Russia, and the issues relating to women in Russian socio-cultural and religious community. While (...) there is a lack of research on the Russian Orthodox Church and its influence on Russians and, particularly, Russian women, the increased religiosity in Russia within the last decade requires us to study the Russian Orthodoxy and its impact on people’s lives and its attitude to gender. This article provides a deep analysis of the impact of the Russian Orthodox Church on the image of women in Russia. It has been argued that Russian national character and heritage was formed by the Russian Orthodox Church and the existing gender stereotypes in Russia have been significantly impacted by the Russian Orthodox Church and have mainly been derived from the interpretation of the New Testament by the Russian Orthodoxy and its clergy. Particularly, gender roles and the perception of family, and marriage are understood to be in compliance with the values of the Russian Orthodox faith. For the faith the most important purpose of marriage is the birth and raising of children and the chief responsibility and duty of a woman is to care for her husband and children as these are considered as a way of the woman’s service to society and to God. (shrink)

Reseña al libro Martínez Doallo, Noelia. El derecho al consentimiento informado del paciente. Una perspectiva iusfundamental. Granada: Editorial Comares, 2021, 164 páginas.

Genetics test in predictive medicine seems to take charge of the uniqueness of any human being. Unlike preventive medicine it moves from the theoretical assumption of the knowledge of a specific individual’s genetic structure and potential fragility. However, the attention paid to the gene risks placing the living and experienced body in the shadow. Sometimes, “genetic news” can make the subject in the present act like a sick person without being so, read every event in that direction, and, ultimately, fulfill (...) the prophecy. The article goes beyond the alleged non-exceptionalism of genetic data and discusses the symbolic value that the gene has assumed and its role in reflexivity and self-perception. (shrink)

Frictions between work and family life have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing negative consequences on the mental health and quality of life of workers. Without validated instruments, it is not possible to determine the impact of Work-Family and Family-Work conflict. To date, no studies have been conducted to provide evidence of the validity and reliability of The Survey Work-Home Interaction Nijmegen in the population of Argentine workers. The SWING was administered to 611 Argentine workers of both sexes aged between (...) 18 and 70 years selected from a non-probabilistic accidental sampling. The confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory fit indices of the original four-factor model. The level of reliability was acceptable. The relationships of the subscale scores with the engagement and burnout variables were as expected according to previous studies. Having an instrument adequately adapted to the population of Argentine workers facilitates the development of studies aimed at evaluating the role of W-F or F-W interactions and their implications for health and productivity. (shrink)

This article encourages a rethinking of how rats are regarded within the laboratory research environment. The rat’s remarkable intellect and cognitive capacities are well known yet conveniently ignored. An understanding of the five domains of animal welfare and the telos of the rat necessitate that the rat’s circumstances, namely habitat accommodations, in the research arena be reassessed. The rat-ness of being a rat must be considered, celebrated, and elevated to significantly higher standards. We advocate for a new research paradigm if (...) one continues to “use” the extraordinary Rattus species. (shrink)

Benjamin Morison, On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place, Oxford University Press, 2002, 202pp, $45.00, ISBN 0199247919.

East Asia’s economy is leading the world into the new Asian century. While meritocratic practices in the educational and private sectors are often considered pivotal conditions for East Asia’s economic success, experts have pointed out that the path ahead requires new approaches to ensure social cohesion and stability, which depend on the quality of relations across social divides. These considerations raise multiple questions for philosophers: What forms of social meritocracy are necessary to sustain social cohesion? Moreover, how can the detrimental (...) effects of meritocratic practices be contained? Is it possible to utilise some of the intellectual resources indigenous to East Asia to generate innovative solutions? This paper argues that the answers to these questions lie in the indigenous Confucian conceptual resources. Confucian ideas can inspire a more desirable societal ideal for the future of East Asia. In particular, the Confucian emphasis on cultivating reciprocal harmonious human relationships and others’ morality can guide new approaches to fostering social cohesion. As Confucian personal cultivation through harmonious relations is a process of social cohesion, these ideas inspire a) a multiple approach to policymaking that is not only grounded in economic redistribution, b) a richer understanding of societal progress, and c) a democratic approach to fostering social cohesion. Unlike Confucian meritocrats and scholars who defend the Confucian roots of East Asian forms of political and social meritocracy, this paper proves that Confucian conceptual resources can help formulate a societal vision that strengthens cohesion and mitigates the adverse effects of meritocratic practices. (shrink)

Coordination is a widely employed term across recent quantitative and qualitative approaches to intersubjectivity, particularly approaches that give embodiment and enaction central explanatory roles. With a focus on linguistic and bodily coordination in conversational contexts, I review the operational meaning of coordination in recent empirical research and related theorizing of embodied intersubjectivity. This discussion articulates what must be involved in treating linguistic meaning as dynamic processes of coordination. The coordination approach presents languaging as a set of dynamic self-organizing processes and (...) actions on multiple timescales and across multiple modalities that come about and work in certain domains (those jointly constructed in social, interactive, high-order sense-making). These processes go beyond meaning at the level that is available to first-person experience. I take one crucial consequence of this to be the ubiquitously moral nature of languaging with others. Languaging coordinates experience, among other levels of behavior and event. Ethical effort is called for by the automatic autonomy-influencing forces of languaging as coordination. (shrink)